Sunday, November 8, 2015

With Trudeau in town, Canada’s Mideast policy looks to change its tune

Benjamin Shinewald, a former senior policy advisor to Canadian prime ministers, believes there’s a host of things Canada could do in the realm of Israeli-Palestinian peacebuilding, starting with empowering the many diplomats who are “demoralized.”

Under the Harper government, they simply “weren’t allowed to engage in public diplomacy,” Shinewald has been quoted as saying. With Trudeau, that should not be an issue going by a letter he sent to ambassadors and high commissioners of Canada's foreign missions.

In the letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Canadian Press, he said his cabinet will be relying on their judgment and insight to advance foreign policy goals. "I expect that you will be engaged energetically in public diplomacy with other diplomats, host government officials, civil society, and the media — in all manner of ways — through direct contact, the media, and social media."

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About Me

A Princeton PhD, was a US diplomat for over 20 years, mostly in Eastern Europe, and was promoted to the Senior Foreign Service in 1997. For the Open World Leadership Center, he speaks with
its delegates from Europe/Eurasia on the topic, "E Pluribus Unum? What Keeps the United States United" (http://johnbrownnotesandessays.blogspot.com/2017/03/notes-and-references-for-discussion-e.html). Affiliated with Georgetown University (http://explore.georgetown.edu/people/jhb7/) for over ten years, he shares ideas with students about public diplomacy.
The papers of his deceased father -- poet and diplomat John L. Brown -- are stored at Georgetown University Special Collections at the Lauinger Library. They are manuscript materials valuable to scholars interested in post-WWII U.S.-European cultural relations.
This blog is dedicated to him, Dr. John L. Brown, a remarkable linguist/humanist who wrote in the Foreign Service Journal (1964) -- years before "soft power" was ever coined -- that "The CAO [Cultural Affairs Officer] soon comes to realize that his job is really a form of love-making and that making love is never really successful unless both partners are participating."